RCH@cup.portal.com (Ric C Helton) (03/08/89)
BobR asks about whether we should worry about our Atari disks that are getting up there (relatively) in years. I think that the same principles that apply to other magnetic media would apply here: Properly stored media in correct temperature tolerances and environmental conditions (i.e. dust-free, magnetically neutral) should last indefinitely. Disks that are used every day, naturally, should be backed up. Wear & tear on a data disk is much less than on, say, cassette tape, but there *is* wear and tear. What amazes *me* is the number of people I have found recently who do not back up commercial disks (in my opinion the lowest quality diskette available! :-) and run with only *one* copy of DOS. A guy who calls my BBS was down for a week until someone supplied him with a copy of SpartaDOS; he had accidentally formatted his only copy. *tsk* *tsk* I think the integrity of data depends entirely on use & wear, and not "disk rot," whatever that may be! ;-) -Ric Helton RCH@cup.portal.com -Freestyle BBS 404/546-8256